1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to data processing systems, and further to a data processing system for scheduling, executing, and monitoring the execution of a plurality of commands in a data processing system which executes commands concurrently and which does not sense or test for the completion of execution of commands. More particularly, the present invention provides apparatus and methods for encapsulating each command in a process whose execution status is monitored so that the commands will execute sequentially wherein a first command will complete executing before beginning the executing of a next command.
2. Description of Related Art
At the lowest level of interaction between computer operating systems and applications, certain fundamental differences arise regarding the handling of processes. In some environments, processes, such as scripts, programs, or commands, operate in a sequential manner such that execution of one process is not started until the previous process has completed executing. In these systems, the result from the execution of one process is, therefore, available when subsequent processes begin executing.
In other environments, multiple processes may start executing generally simultaneously, i.e. concurrently. In these systems, the results of the execution of one process are not available to the other processes.
The environments which execute processes concurrently without regard for the status of execution of other processes suffer from some disadvantages. Branching logic and complex scripts cannot be constructed because the results of previously executed processes are not necessarily available to subsequent processes.
Thus, it would be beneficial to have an apparatus and method for scheduling and executing processes in a sequential order in an environment which executes processes concurrently.